I’ve been posting a lot on the massiveness of the attempts to re-direct telecom infrastructure in positive ways. The macro problem is basically how to tackle large scale problems and change conventional ways of thinking, which led to the question, why do I rarely finish tasks early? Is it just human nature?
Along the same lines, I got to thinking how the world was able to for the most part fix the Y2K bug (remember that?) Yet in most other cases, impending disasters, like our dependence on oil, failing infrastructure and unsustainable spending, all go unheeded.
I came up with two reasons, one is that the world had a deadline. Come January 1, 2000, we were all scared that the lights would go off, our bank accounts would evaporate, nuclear power plants would explode, sewage would flood into our drinking water system, and our computers would explode. I knew a lot of people in IT who certainly were not going to party like it was 1999 on that New Year’s Eve. (On the smaller scale, my personal tasks tend to get completed when I have set deadlines.)
Are we just lazy and short sighted without deadlines and structure? Maybe, maybe not.
The second reason is that the direct costs of fixing the bug to most people were minimal. It was a one-off project, and no government or company was going to be known as the one that blew it. Coding systems to switch from two digit years to four digit years was complex, but it was containable. Further, it didn’t require much sacrifice on the individual level.
Where as in the case of moving off our dependence on oil, the transition is going to demand direct lifestyle changes and loss of freedoms to most people. Of course, starting early will make the transition easier, but that is unlikely to happen. Further, large scale social problems rarely has concise, real deadlines, which makes Y2K an interesting, albeit special case.
Back to the drawing board.
